Time flies and I realize this more than anytime else when I type this post. Seven months of 2018 are already over.

Sometimes life throws so many challenges to you and that to, all at once, that you end up screwed and aimless. For me, last seven months were just like that.

Anyway, that is a topic for another post.

Here is my inconsistent attempt on keeping the monthly log. This one is for July 2018.

The only solace that I had in past six months was a wonderful birthday gift – A Kindle. Yeah, I got a Kindle! Fortunately, I even managed to finish reading two very wonderful and heart wrenching books – “Last train to Istanbul” & “A thousand splendid Suns”.

Movies:

Well, in-spite of the whirlwind on personal and professional front, I managed to watch the below mentioned movies:

Sex and the City Part I & II: I watched this movie over and over and never had a sense of boredom. A must watch, in my opinion. The movie is based on routine life and relationship of 4 female friends.

A Beautiful Mind: An Academy award winning movie, needing no explanation of the reasons to watch. A great story and equally great cinematography.

After consistently failing to post monthly log, I am here with some update.

Year 2017 did not really end on a good note for me. Although, I cannot claim it to be a bad one too. I ended 2017 and began 2018 exploring Rajasthan with my family. Some squabble among close family members made the last phase of the trip miserable. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed sun set at Jaisalmer with my son. He too, loved camel ferry and desert safari a lot. I shall post few pics of the trip shortly.

Books:

I finished reading two books from mid January to end February. The books were 3000 stringsby legendary Sudha Murthy and A hundred little flames by Preeti Shenoy. In an attempt to regain my long lost habit of reading, I consciously choose these books. I loved reading them and felt at peace as I completed reading them.

Movies:

Dear Dad: Loved watching this movie. Movie is based on a father-son story where father comes out as a gay to his teenager son. All the actors in the film have done justice to their roles.

Well, this is what I recollect retrospectively about all the stuff that I could do in February.

Traveling with your toddler is cheaper (and more fun) than you think. Part 1 of 2:Stefen Chow is a father to a four year old. I stumbled upon his articles in parenting read recommendations and I wasn’t disappointed at all. I loved the idea of just ‘father-toddler’outing. For, it offers a little more bonding between father and toddler which usually is between ‘mother-toddler’ and the mother also gets a day off for herself.

This article tells you about his recent trip to Japan with his daughter. Being a father myself and besides loving the idea of ‘father-toddler’ outing, I really admire his courage and execution of the trip. As a takeaway, I plan to do a day’s outing with my son to a nearby zoo.

Stefen also took his daughter to Mt. Everest when she was just 3. Just the idea to take your toddler to such an altitude is courageous in itself. Stefen executed this successfully. You may read the complete articlehere.

Travel & Food:

I traveled to 2 states (Tamil Nadu & Gujarat) for different purposes and loved the variety of food that I got to taste. Here are the details.

Kesariya: We went to Kesariya to celebrate a special occasion. This restaurant offers typical Rajasthani food. Despite good reviews from Zoomato, I did’t like the food. The food was very, very ordinary. I would definitely not recommend this place. Ambiance was peaceful though. Though this is Bangalore, Karnataka where I currently reside to earn my bread and butter, thought to mention this.

Bandipur & Ooty: With an extended weekend at hand, we did an impromptu outing to Bandipur National Park and Ooty. The climate all through this trip was favorable, making drive very pleasant and enjoyable. Bandipur forest reserves are quite dense, preserved & well protected. My little baby Aarav thoroughly enjoyed watching and feeding monkeys, elephants and deer (yes, you will find plenty of deer while driving through Bandipur). He was very curious to get to see a tiger or a lion but had to settle with these. Nevertheless, he was very happy to see all these animals at a hand’s distance. Specifically about Ooty, I did not like the popular tourist attractions of this place and would recommend skipping those and rather, would suggest spending a peaceful day on the outskirts of the town. Besides popular tourist attractions, Ooty has lot of tea planting farms and household chocolate factories which offer genuinely good tea and tasty chocolates.

Ahmedabad: Although this was a work visit, it did allow some food tasting around the city and as expected, I enjoyed a variety of Gujarati food. Also, it’s worth a mention that Gujarat offers really good street food. Almost everywhere in the city you get some mouth watering stuff to satisfy your taste buds and importantly, it’s very cheap despite being maintained for quality.

TV Shows, Music and Movies:

1. Game of Thrones: I completed 1st season of this very popular series. I am amazed with the cinematography. I am definitely looking forward to complete the next series asap.

2. Sarabhavi vs. Sarabhai: Just started watching this hindi comic series and I am looking forward to watch some more of it. Loved the one liners and comic timings.

3.Amit Trivedi’s Sound of Nation: This is a collection of Amit Trivedi’s some of the best compositions. He performed this at Mirchi Music Awards. It’s worth a watch. You can check this out here.

4. Kapoor and Sons: A good Bollywood movie. I highly recommend to watch.

With the promise to write more often, I wish to create a monthly log. The monthly log will essentially constitute my monthly reads, TV shows/movies I saw and any other interesting information that I believe would interest you as well.

The intent to create a monthly log is to see and track my monthly progress and analyze the productivity. The original idea to create a monthly log is taken from here .

[PS: I expect to publish the monthly log somewhere in the last week. Check out this space somewhere in the last week of August for further updates.]

I finished reading ‘Dork’ by Sidin Vadukut and ‘Pathways to Light’ by Prakash Amte. I wish to do some serious (business related) reading in Q2.

I started reading ‘The White Tiger’.

I swam for few hours and started playing Table Tennis.

I started thinking seriously about some good investment options (Do let me know if you know any).

I requested few of my friends to write something, as a guest, to not let my blog die a slow death. Unfortunately, only one of them wrote and immediately after that, the writer within her woke-up to start her own blog. Friends will never change.

Lastly, I visited this site many times only to realize that I am not writing at-all. An old habit being persistently followed.

From last few days I am suffocating…. restlessness is filling in my heart and head…as if I have no control of life and what is happening in it (for that matter I never had control on my life and now I am actually wondering if anyone really has so called ‘control on life’?)

So basically root cause of this gibberish starts from the fact I am not really enjoying my 9 to 5 job (8.30 to 5.30 to be precisely). Plainly for earning money I am doing it but then I am not earning some pretty good stuff as well. So what I need to do to rectify it is what I am clueless about.

Several (useless!) discussions with some of my very good friends (who are equally hopeless) trigger even more frustration and kind of confusion (about purpose of life and some other such super-philosophical bullshit……).

Frankly speaking, is that so that God has chosen privileged few to live life of glory and rest of the people on earth are just filling remaining time gap and space just like in any Bollywood (filmy to the core) award function during performance when lead actor goes back stage for changing attire, the back dancers gets fraction of seconds to fill the stage???

Someone has said (And I am really keen to know who this is?) “Every individual is unique in his or her own way and we just need to tap the hidden potential to get all the things which we actually deserve in life” (in short all materialistic and luxurious things). But this unique person does not advises us greatly about how to tap this bloody hidden potential and how to even know if you have one? The very thought is quite soothing of having (though hidden) some potential. But let me make you aware of the fact that hidden potential can be equivalent to no potential at all if not tapped. So trap here is how to identify what actually you are meant to be?

So I have started this quest and if you are also in the same boat (of people who are not completely clear about their goals of life but at least understood importance of having a goal) join me in my quest, who knows in this journey we might get something precious.

To say, post marriage this was a first real family outing. This one was special for other reason too. For, this was a first outing of my baby Aarav. And to my surprise, he enjoyed it to its fullest.

Well, this was a kind of planned-cancelled-re-planned-impromptu outing. I wasn’t sure If I really wanted to go. But then missus insisted on and so it happened. It definitely served a big refresher to me, since last few months I was loaded with work till my eyeballs, relocation formalities, and some other personal matters.

The agenda was simple – Spending some family time and keeping ourselves away from all the chores. And likewise, we slept for long hours, ate some delicious local food and lazily went around the place.

Another good thing that happened during this tour was I visited ‘Murud Janjira Fort’. It was a long lost wish that came true. The fort, though not maintained at it’s best can be considered as one masterpiece structure. It is the only fort that remained impenetrable probably because of the very reason of it being in the sea. You can read more details about the fort here. Nevertheless, ferry ride up-to the fort from the enchanting sea water was memorable and exciting one.